The fallen of the Great War lie buried in well tended graves throughout the Middle East.
Here men of the NZMR Brigade rest forever overlooking modern Jerusalem.
An officers whistle, used to command the men into attack - the last sound many soldiers heard.
Behind, the bronze Death Plaque
presented to families engraved with a husband or son's
name, grimly referred to as the "Death Penny" by the troops.

Jewish Children decorate the graves of fallen soldiers buried in Jerusalem. This 1920 photograph is taken not far from the spot of the above recent coloured photograph taken by NZMR member Terry Kinloch while on service in the Middle East in 2002. In this image we can see the "Dome of the Rock" on the left slightly above the arm of the large cross. The individual crosses in front of the graves are temporary fixtures before headstone replaced them. Many of the soldiers buried here had been re interned after being relocated from graves from desert actions. The size difference between the city of 1920 to the present is obvious, Turkish Palestine carried a small population owing to the rampant infections of mosquito to other insect and waterborne plagues.

Two members of the Wellington Mounted Rifles place a wreath on a fallen mates grave near Romani, site of the first Allied victory during the Sinai Campaign in 1916

1916 photograph by Trooper Stanley Burrowes WMR

A cemetery containing the graves of New Zealand soldiers at Rafa. The white cross in the left marks the grave of 13/3037 Trooper John Robert Hueston of the Auckland Mounted Rifles NZEF, who was killed in action on 9 January 1917. The center grave is the grave of 13/2031 Trooper Albert John Cross of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles NZEF, who was killed in action on 9 January 1917 aged 27 years. In the foreground is the grave of 13/1044A Sergeant Henry Cecil McNamara of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles NZEF, who was killed in action on 9th January, 1917.
Credit line: Lent by Mrs V M Smith.

photograph 2006 - Gal Shaine - Israel

Right: photograph Trooper Stanley Burrowes WMR. Circa 1916.

Left: Killed in the Battle of Ayun Kara on the 14th November 1917, Trooper Kenneth Murdoch Matherson lies buried in the Ramlea War Cemetery with his fellow combatants who died that day. Kenneth was a member of the 23rd Mounted Rifles Reinforcements, Wellington Mounted Rifles and was a Farrier from Manawatu.

Not all Gallipoli casualties were buried on Gallipoli. Many troops evacuated wounded were to die at sea or in the Hospitals of Malta, Cairo and Alexandria. Below: Penned note and a photograph from the album of Trooper Stanley Burrowes records the dead at Alexandria.